A report from the New York Times. "Good news, New Yorkers: You may no longer need $1 million to buy a middle-of-the-road Manhattan apartment. But just barely. Lest the financially average among us get too excited, the median price only fell to $999,000, dipping below $1 million in the last quarter of 2018, according to Douglas Elliman. It was the first time the median price fell below seven figures since crossing the million-dollar listing threshold in 2015."

"The slowdown in the city has followed patterns emerging across the United States. Sales are declining across the country, driving down prices, said Jonathan J. Miller, the real estate appraiser who prepared Douglas Elliman’s report. But the Manhattan apartment market has led the way."

"'The New York metro area was one of the first to really see a downshift,' he said."

"'It’s a great market for buyers,' said Hall F. Willkie, the president of Brown Harris Stevens. 'Things are selling for less, there’s more inventory, and more people are having a hard time selling their apartments.'"

"Units that sold for stratospheric prices had a psychological effect on other sellers, who saw the prices as benchmarks to which they could aspire. That mentality took root across all levels of Manhattan’s apartment market, Mr. Miller said."

"'I heard so many stories about, like, a tenement fourth-floor walk-up in the Lower East Side being overpriced' because of major luxury apartment purchases, Mr. Miller said. 'There was like a really strange logic that sellers were using.'"

"Buyers eventually started to balk, and some properties lingered on the market, Mr. Willkie said. Once sellers began to adjust their mind-sets, prices began to fall. 'Everyone was believing that real estate was going to be worth more tomorrow,' Mr. Willkie said. 'And looking at property as an investment, rather than what residential real estate is: shelter. And if you don’t make a good decision about shelter, you’re going to get wet the next time it rains.'"

From Realtor.com. "U.S. luxury home sales will follow an old cliche in 2019: What goes up must come down. 'It’s a different world at the end of year than it was at the start of the 2018,' said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor."

A press release on Houston Texas. "According to a housing survey at the end of 2018, eighty percent of Houston homes sold for less than their listing prices. 'Slowdown is the right word. It is not a bubble or a crash. I think it was time for the housing market to take a breather,' stated Raymond Campbell of Houston Home Buyers."

A press release from Realtor.com. "The U.S. housing market showed continuing signs of cooling in many of the nation's largest metros in December. According to realtor.com®'s December housing report today, the largest markets saw a 10 percent increase in inventory, compared to a nationwide average of 5 percent, as time on market decelerated, listing price growth slowed and price cuts increased."

"The steepest declines in median listing prices were felt in San Jose, Calif., and San Francisco, which were down 12 percent and 4 percent, or $130,000 and $33,000, respectively. Austin, Texas, Houston, Dallas, Nashville, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla. also saw declines. However, selling prices in some of these markets are not yet reflecting these declines."

The Citrus County Chronicle in Florida. "Many analysts believe the housing market, which has been 'full speed ahead' for the last year or two, may finally be chugging to a halt. Home prices in Citrus County rose sharply last year, pricing many out of the market. There is some concern that the runaway train was getting eerily similar to the housing bust of 10 years ago."

"There is also an expectation by some analysts that the economic bubble that Americans have been enjoying will burst and that could upset the housing market, said former RACC president C.J. Dixon. Even though he doesn’t see that happening, talk and speculation like that tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, he said."

"'If everyone thinks it’s going to happen, it will happen,' Dixon said."